Jamie Spears has agreed to step down as Britney Spears’ conservator, as TMZ and Variety report. Jamie has been the head of her conservatorship – a legal arrangement that has dictated both Britney’s personal and professional life – since a Los Angeles court put it in place in 2008 following a series of mental health issues and public breakdowns.
On Thursday, Jamie Spears filed legal documents saying that while there are no legal grounds for his removal, he is willing to cooperate with the court on a transition. “Mr. Spears continues to serve dutifully, and he should not be suspended or removed, and certainly not based on false allegations,” a filing viewed by NBC stated. “Mr. Spears is willing to step down when the time is right, but the transition needs to be orderly and include a resolution of matters pending before the Court.”
“There are, in fact, no actual grounds for suspending or removing Mr. Spears as the Conservator of the Estate. … And it is highly debatable whether a change in conservator at this time would be in Ms. Spears’ best interests,” Jamie’s lawyer reportedly states in the documents. “Nevertheless, even as Mr. Spears is the unremitting target of unjustified attacks, he does not believe that a public battle with his daughter over his continuing service as her conservator would be in her best interests. So even though he must contest this unjustified Petition for his removal, Mr. Spears intends to work with the Court and his daughter’s new attorney to prepare for an orderly transition to a new conservator.”
Britney’s lawyer Mathew Rosengart provided the following statement to TMZ:
We are pleased but not necessarily surprised that Mr. Spears and his lawyer finally recognize that he must be removed. We are disappointed, however, by their ongoing shameful and reprehensible attacks on Ms. Spears and others.
We look forward to continuing our vigorous investigation into the conduct of Mr. Spears, and others, over the past 13 years, while he reaped millions of dollars from his daughter’s estate, and I look forward to taking Mr. Spears’s sworn deposition in the near future. In the interim, rather than making false accusations and taking cheap shots at his own daughter, Mr. Spears should step aside immediately.
Britney’s ongoing battle to be free from her conservatorship gained widespread traction earlier this year following the New York Times/FX/Hulu documentary Framing Britney Spears.
